I, Faramir
by Surreysmum
Summary: Aragorn asks Faramir to keep a journal for a week; only Faramir is surprised by what he writes. Slash, but not really; this is a story of feelings repressed and denied.


Title: I, Faramir  
Author: surreysmum  
Pairing (sort of): Aragorn/Faramir  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: They're Professor Tolkien's; I'm just playing in the corner of his garden.

**I, Faramir**

_Day 1_

I sit here looking at this blank page, with that silly title inscribed at the top. Well, I suppose I shouldn't be so rude about it, since Aragorn ordered me to use it. "Don't give me that look, Faramir," he said. "I mean it. It's a direct order. No excuses. When you get home to Ithilien, I want you to take at least an hour every day and write about yourself. For at least a week. And you are to put the title, 'I, Faramir' at the top of every page to remind yourself that you are not writing about the history of the Stewardship, or the cross-influences in Human and Elven minstrelsy arising from the Ringwar, or any of the other fascinating topics that usually occupy your pen. Nor are you to waste your ink on the goings-on here at court, though of course you must discuss other people if they have an effect on _you_. Just write about yourself, Faramir, for a little bit."

"And should I hand in my lesson to you when I return to help you with the Rohan conference in ten days?" I asked sarcastically. Normally I am not so free with him, but to be truthful, I was feeling a little put-upon and in some way unfairly criticized, though I could not quite say how or why.

He sighed then, and put a hand on each of my shoulders in that way he has, making me look at him. "I won't be reading it, Faramir, not unless you specifically say you want me to. I'll never ask it. Bring it with you if you like, and we'll burn it, unread by anyone except yourself, in this fireplace here. But will you do as I ask? Just to please your old friend?"

Well, when he asks like that, I'd paint myself blue and jump naked from the highest tower of Minas Tirith; that's no secret to anybody. Eowyn says she's never seen a man who could inspire the kind of devotion Aragorn does, just by giving someone a look or a pat on the shoulder at the right moment. And when I asked her once, a bit worried, whether the depth of my fealty to Aragorn bothered her, she hugged me very tight and kissed me with more warmth than she usually shows in the daytime, and told me no, that it only made her love me more. And I think she meant it.

So, where was I? Oh yes - I agreed. A bit ungraciously, I must admit.

"You want to know why," he said. "Of course you do."

Well, I was feeling rather ashamed of myself for making such a fuss already, so I just gave him a rather tight smile. He smiled back, and steered me over to the table where he poured a glass of wine and pressed it into my hand. And then he poured some for himself, and if he thinks I don't know him well enough to realize he was taking the time to find a nice way to put what he was going to say next, he has another think coming.

He sat down in his big chair, and gestured impatiently till I sat down in the other one.

"For the last couple of months, I've had a rather grumpy Steward," he told me eventually, almost apologetically. "I realize it's a terrible strain for you, travelling back and forth all the time… "

"I like it, actually," I interrupted him. And I do. That familiar journey with a home at each end, and no responsibilities in the middle, has become something I really look forward to, no matter the season or the weather. It gives me time to think a few thoughts, and sometimes (although I've never even told Eowyn this), I make up my own songs and sing them aloud to the cattle in the fields as I pass. They're remarkably uncritical, those cattle!

There's the dinner bell. Oh well, that's the long and the short of it. I'm grumpy, apparently - well, he may have a point about that - so I have to write a diary. Kings. One can only roll one's eyes. Only the Valar know what I'll find to write about tomorrow.

_Day 2_

I'm really at a loss how to fill this page today. I mean, I'm just rather ordinary, when it comes down to it. A middle-aged man, with what most people would consider a rather good job, and I suppose if you're impressed by outward things like the title "Prince" (I rarely use it, though), I have some status. And I'm useful enough, in my own way, which is a great solace to me.

Wynnie and I have long since settled into a very peaceful and comfortable routine here in Ithilien. We spent the first few years of our marriage finding out and poking at each other's sore spots (as most young marrieds do, I suspect), but since then we've learned enough wisdom to give each other more comfort than aggravation. Having Elboron together was an enormous and wondrous change for both of us; for the better all around, I think, though Wynnie's sudden conversion to frills and baby-talk and pink bedspreads came as a bit of a surprise - I blame Arwen for a lot of that, frankly. Anyway, there's nothing like having a youngster around to take your mind off yourself, and wallowing in self-doubt (as I freely admit I did a lot as a younger man) is not much of an option when you have a growing boy to be father to. I must admit these last couple of years since he flew the nest, it has been rather lonely in our big palace in Emyn Arnen. Wynnie says she feels the same way. But Gwennie seems like a very good lass, and they promise as soon as she has the baby, they'll visit us for a good long stretch and let us be doting grandparents. Elboron says if it's a boy they'll call him Barahir. Must admit I'm just a little disappointed about that - I mean, it's a fine old name, but I was hoping my first grandson might be named after me, or Boromir, or maybe the King.

Grandson. It seems almost impossible that we've lived that long, and in such peace. All credit to Aragorn for that - he's a good King, but he's no empire-builder, and though there was a fair bit of fighting to do even after the Ring was destroyed, we did it as cleanly and quickly as we could, with good order in mind, not revenge. I'm glad those days are over. Though I've come to acknowledge over the years that I was never as dismal a failure on the battlefield as my poor benighted old father always told me I was, it's still not how I'd ever choose to spend my days. Now Boromir, on the other hand… You know, it's a terrible thing to confess, for I still miss him, every day of my life, but I've come to think of it as something of a blessing for my brother that he was taken as a young man, before that warlike spirit of his could come to fret and feel useless in peaceful days. He died exactly as he would have wanted to, I think, bravely and for a reason he could believe in; Aragorn has often told me that my poor brother's troubled mind was clear at the last from the influence of that terrible Ring, and that he had his own kind of peace at the end. Yes, one could have a much worse death than Boromir did. I'll admit it here, though nowhere else, that when I used to go into battle in those after-days, side by side with the King, it was that picture of Boromir dying in Aragorn's arms that I used to think of. It helped me steel myself; I used to think that if Denethor's second son wasn't as brave a warrior as his first, yet nonetheless he'd have no worse an end, for surely Aragorn would notice and care for me too. Was that conceited and wrong? Probably, but it doesn't matter, because it helped me get through the worst of it, and as it turned out, I didn't die, but lived to see Aragorn properly crowned, and married, and come into his own as King of a great realm.

Wynnie will be wondering where I've disappeared to. I've left this little chore late tonight, and it's nearing our bedtime. We like to go to bed and get up together; it's one of the small, enormously valuable parts of marriage that nobody really tells you about, that companionship at nightfall, at dawn, through the night. Though there's not much happens in that bed but sleep these days, I'm not really complaining. All human men know that there will come a time when their wives are less interested in physical affection than they are. Wynnie and I seem to have worked out quite a good compromise - I ask less often, but she accommodates me more often than she really feels the urge to. And once we get started, she seems to enjoy it well enough. I wonder if Aragorn thinks that's why I'm grumpy lately. If he does, he's wrong.

_Day 3_

You know, writing about it yesterday made me think back to the early days of my marriage with Eowyn (she didn't let me call her Wynnie for more than a year, and even then, she said, "and never at court, unless you want to wake up the next morning with your best bits gone!" She had her ferocious moments, my Wynnie - still does, the Valar bless her!)

Anyway, I was put in mind of a rather odd bedtime conversation we had shortly after we were married. You have to remember that Eowyn and I had a very unconventional courtship: we met in the Houses of Healing, both of us recovering from wounds of both body and spirit. Aragorn was the one who had brought us both back. And we were trapped there in Minas Tirith, trapped by our healing bodies, as all the great events transpired in the East without us - as the great man who held a large part of both our hearts went out to achieve his destiny. We stood looking eastward every night, and Aragorn was there for both of us, with us in the midst of our own quietly flowering love, just as much as if he had been there in his own complicated, complicating, beloved person. Eowyn was still very much enamoured of him when we first met, and that unrequited passion was quite literally killing her all over again. She's proud, my Wynnie - it's one of the things I love most about her - and she was bound and determined to put on her armour again and get herself killed rather than live for the rest of her life with the shame of having given her heart to a man who couldn't love her back.

If it had been any other man in the world, I would have hated him for that. Even though the last thing he wanted was to hurt her, and I knew it, I would have hated him for the pain he caused her. But Aragorn I could not hate. Not then, not ever.

I've never tried to put into words before what I experienced at his hands in the Houses of Healing. I fear I can't - it will emerge as a syrupy mess; it will fail to convey the depth and the strength and the joy of the feelings. All I can tell you is that I was in hopeless torment; I burned but I could not expire. I was in despair. And then suddenly he was there. He walked with me in my fiery darkness for what seemed like days; he listened patiently to the horrible confessions of my tormented mind. He saw all the worst parts of me, the parts I have tried so desperately to suppress: my resentment of Boromir and the easy way he earned my father's praise; my terrible anger at my father for his ruthless dismissal of my judgment and my hard-won battle-skill, not to mention my wrath against his contempt for Gandalf, whom I revered for his wisdom and secretly wished for as a father in Denethor's stead. Aragorn saw all my memories of my own fears and my self-contempt for those fears. He saw all the stupid, petty faults that ate away at me and made me despise myself. And instead of turning from me in revulsion, he simply accepted me, and soothed my forehead, and told me that soon the worst would be over.

I've never quite understood how, but I saw his face clearly during that terrible time, and recognized him; knew him both as Aragorn and as the King. I saw the pure nobility of what he wished from me - simply that I would let him lend his strength so that I could be healed and come back to him, come back to his acceptance and his love. (You can have no idea how long I hesitated with my pen before I wrote that word, but it is the right one, the only possible one). So when the fire was suddenly driven away by a fresh wind of joy and I opened my eyes to find him bending over me in the very flesh, it was only my recalcitrant body that kept me from kneeling before him and kissing his hands. Instead I said, "My lord, you called me. I come. What does the king command?" I have never forgotten the gentle smile that passed over his face when I said that.

And, Aragorn being Aragorn, what he commanded was that I eat and rest and get better, so that I would be ready when he returned. I didn't realize at that moment that he meant when he returned from saving the whole of Middle Earth from the Shadow - that I would have to wait that long before I could pledge him my allegiance. But I have loved him and been ready to serve him ever since.

So you see, even for my proud, noble, best-loved lady Eowyn, I couldn't bring myself to hate Aragorn. I believe that they are not loves in conflict, nor in competition within my heart, but that each one makes me stronger in its own way. And it is my dearest wish never, ever to let either one of them down.

Oh yes, I was going to write about that bedtime conversation with Wynnie - but no, she was still Eowyn then. Even though we had been wed nearly a year, and she was soft and loving to me, I still sometimes wondered in my weaker moments if I could only ever be second in her heart. One night, in the slackness and carelessness of sated passion, some demon seized my tongue, and I asked her whether I was indeed an adequate Aragorn-substitute. Well-justified she would have been to slap me and leave my bed at that moment, but instead my Eowyn just turned to me and stroked her long white fingers across my chest, punishing my nipple ever so slightly and thoughtfully with her fingernail.

"Never say that," she scolded me. And then, shocking me, she added, "Indeed, 'Mir, I sometimes wonder whether I am an adequate Aragorn-substitute for you."

_Day 4_

I woke up this morning groaning at my own obtuseness. It has suddenly become clear to me why Aragorn thinks it necessary for me to perform this silly daily ritual. Really, I should learn to listen more closely when he speaks. "For the last couple of months," he said.

It's true. It pains me grievously to admit it, but I've been nervous and skittish around him ever since that night two months ago when he and I had to take shelter from a snowstorm in the cave behind the falls up at Henneth Annûn. It's a night that I have been carefully avoiding thinking about, let alone mentioning here. And he wants me to write about it and get it out of my system.

All right. I concede. Today I will write about it; but I will not examine it. Today's task is merely to set down what happened, as clearly and as honestly as I can. Taking it (and myself) apart can wait until tomorrow. After all, it's not as if anything untoward actually happened, really…

I don't know whether my weather sense has diminished as I have grown older, or whether I was just distracted by the sheer pleasure of having Aragorn's company all to myself for a few days, but I did not see that snowstorm coming, even though so far into Northern Ithilien in mid-February, it was hardly unexpected. Aragorn and I were on what he calls (usually with a sly grin) a "royal progress" - a horseback tour of the small towns and villages in some region of his realm, where he charms the townsfolk and I have a quiet word with the tax collectors and other officials, making sure all is being conducted fairly.

Though it can be hard riding sometimes, these expeditions are still a pleasure, not a chore for me. I pride myself that I have stayed fit and hardy; not that I'll ever match Aragorn in that respect, with all his natural advantages. There's nothing I can do about the creeping grey in my hair, or the little wrinkles that appear in unexpected and undignified places. Nonetheless, my body's still lean and strong and able to do what I ask of it, thank the Valar. As for him, he doesn't look a day older than he did the day he was crowned; in fact, I think as he has grown more potent and more confident in his rule, that haggard look has dropped away from him, and if anything he looks younger, irritating man that he is! (Though none of us has cause to indulge in vanity with the Elves around).

Anyway, somehow we managed to get ourselves well out on that isolated road that runs up the stretch of the Anduin near Henneth Annûn without realizing that the temperature had risen slightly and the snow that had been whispering lightly round our ears all day had begun to come down thick and fast.

"We'd better take shelter for the night," Aragorn said, huddling into his cloak. "Think you can still find your way behind the falls?"

"Could do it blindfolded," I said confidently, though it had been many years since either of us had made use of this wartime hideout. It was still very much a secret, known only to those of us who were or had been Rangers, and though it was almost never visited now, no-one had ever bothered to divest it of its primitive furnishings.

We threaded our way through the narrow passage and into the darkness of the rough-hewn cave. A fire had always been out of the question in this place for fear of discovery, and now it was out of the question again for a simpler reason - no firewood, and no desire to go in search of it. So it was not just dark, but cold, very cold.

I have seen Henneth Annûn in all seasons and all weathers. I have seen the the Western sun glow in through the falling water more times than I can count; I have seen the river curtain glisten and sparkle cheerfully at high noon and gleam in sinister moonlight. On this wintry eve, the water fell sullenly, thickly, almost invisible against the snow-filled air without. I stared at it for a moment, then turned and bumped into Aragorn in the darkness. He laughed and clutched at me for balance, his features indistinct but his breath faintly visible in the gloom right before me.

"Warmth, I need warmth," he said urgently, though with a tinge of self-mockery. "Don't I recall there was some kind of bedding in this cave? Some blankets, perchance?"

Into my mind unbidden flashed a vivid memory of Frodo and Sam on their low, makeshift bed that night they came unwillingly into our midst, Sam tense and protective of Frodo even in his sleep. I felt my way over to a nook under a small overhang in the corner, and found what I expected, a thick pile of blankets. Quite possibly they were the same ones that had given the hobbits whatever small comfort they found.

Together we pulled out the blankets and shook some of them out, checking with gingerly touch to be sure they were not too badly sullied by time and small creatures before arranging them against the driest wall of the cave. Aragorn seated himself upon them.

"Come here then, ye worthless varlet, and make yourself useful for once, as my warming pan," he said in a laugh-tinged drawl.

"Anything to please Your Highness," I responded with feigned breathlessness, "anything at all!" And I let him draw me down to sit between his legs, my back to his chest.

It's a game we fall into sometimes, only when we're alone of course, this little by-play of spoiled Prince and fawning servant. I'm not quite sure why we do it, except of course that it amuses us both, and perhaps reassures us that such a thing could never happen in reality. For we were comrades, soldier and leader, long before we were servant and master, and Aragorn guards my dignity, and that of all his men, as if it were his own.

Except, of course, when he is whining, "My hands, ye fool, my hands are shaking with the cold. Warm them at once!"

Laughing silently, I pulled a couple of blankets up to our shoulders, then seized his hands and brought them to my stomach, where I covered them with my own. "I beg forgiveness, most noble Highness," I said, not begging anything. I looked back over my shoulder and caught the flash of his wolfish grin in the darkness.

"Any news from your son?" he asked in his normal tones, though his hands stayed put (they were, after all, in a nice warm place).

"Wynnie had a note from them the other day; apparently Gwennie's growing big as a house. The midwives are predicting a healthy boy," I said, and then went on and on about it just like the tedious old grandfather-to-be I am.

I won't waste paper on all the things we talked about that evening. Politics. Horses. The renovation of the royal treasury and archives. More politics. Just all the usual things.

Oh, but speaking of the archives, I did tell him about a regrettably imperfect and mouldy parchment I'd found that contained a transcription of an ancient ballad I'd never heard of, and to my surprise he said he remembered hearing that one sung many times at the court of my grandsire Ecthelion, when he served there under the name of Thorongil. He sang it to me then, as much as he could remember, and I tried to make mental notes. But he has promised to write it down for me sometime. He has a pleasant voice; he should sing more often.

We talked a bit too about my young apprentice, Orodreth. Aragorn insisted some years ago that I take somebody on to do some of the more laborious paperwork, and I must say we made a good choice. The lad - well, no, he's a young man now - is full of energy and aptitude, and apparently gets along with Arwen like a house on fire. Aragorn laughed and said his only failing is that he's sometimes a bit too helpful. It's good to know that when the time comes there will be someone who can take over my administrative duties without a hitch. He has a good name for it - there was an Orodreth amongst my ancestors - and though my son Elboron will inherit the ancestral title, he doesn't show any signs of wanting to help run the royal household.

As I made that particular observation, I gave a big yawn, and Aragorn promptly matched it. So of one accord we slid deeper down amongst the blankets and dozed off without any trouble. My last sleepy thought as I listened to the unchanging thunder of the waterfall was of Frodo and Sam in that place, anxious and quietly terrified, and I thanked the Valar once more that the world had changed for the better.

I grow sleepy now, thinking about it. I will have to finish this tomorrow.

_Day 5_

I find myself decidedly reluctant to keep writing this. But the King has commanded it.

Sometime in the middle of that night, I woke to the sound of Aragorn's quiet breathing and opened my eyes to find that Ithil had risen and was flooding the cave with water-filtered moonbeams. The snow must have stopped for the light to be so bright. I became aware of a pressing need to empty my bladder, and pushed myself carefully, reluctantly away from the warmth of my companion, cocooning the blankets around him as I emerged into the chill.

I approached the cliff-edge of the cave. Beyond the water, as I knew well, it was a precipitous fall into the deep, forbidden pool. There was surely no way, short of having stickier feet than a Mirkwood spider, that anyone could have scaled that cliff outside and used the waterfall as an entrance. But we were always cautious men, we Northern Rangers, and we had driven short, lethal spikes into the cave walls all around the opening to the waterfall. I had grown so used to seeing them there I had forgotten all about them.

That waterfall flows too fast and strong ever to freeze, but it blows a mighty spray into the cave-mouth, and wherever it landed the spray froze on that more than chilly night. In particular, the ice had formed and grown all over each spike like a strange translucent tree-bark. Where the moonlight caught them, the spikes glittered so brightly they cast shadows upon each other at odd angles.

I heard Aragorn's footsteps approach me. "Beautiful," he said, when he realized what I was looking at.

"Deadly," I replied, shuddering a little.

His hand fell on my shoulder briefly. "Both," he conceded. Then he stepped forward closer to the curtain of water, reached into his lacings and matter-of-factly pissed into the waterfall. As he tucked himself back in, and I rather shamefacedly followed his example, he said, "Come back to bed, 'Mir. I can't sleep tonight without my warming-pan."

I was glad to oblige. It took more than a few moth-eaten old blankets to shut out the bitter cold that night, and his warmth at my back made the difference in letting me sleep as well.

I am not quite sure why - perhaps it was those spikes that set my sleeping imagination wandering into dark places - but towards dawn I had again a horrifying dream that I have had on occasion since the War, the one where Aragorn kills me.

I say horrifying, but one of the most striking, disturbing things about this dream, every time it has come to me, is while I am in it, I am neither horrified, nor panicked, nor even fearful. Nor have I ever been able to recall, upon waking, any exact reason why I must be killed, or why it must be Aragorn, of all people, who kills me, or why in that particular fashion (and it is always the same). We are merely agreed that it must be done. Indeed, if I am anxious at all, it is only that I must make a good death. Is this the ghost of my brother in my mind? But Aragorn did not kill him; quite the opposite.

As well as I can recall, it never seems to happen in battle, or in any public place of execution. If anything, it's a rather private execution, just him and me. And there is no ceremony; I merely say "All right, then, it's time." And I sit back comfortably and spread my arms submissively, and he looks at me with that rather intense stare he sometimes gets, and asks, "Are you ready?" And when I nod, he lifts Anduril and plunges it deep in my chest, and it doesn't hurt, not as you'd expect. Sometimes he even plunges the sword in several times before I die. And as I die - is this not ridiculous? - I feel nothing but happiness and delight at having done as he wished.

Always at this point, just before my mind convinces me I have truly expired, I wake and worry about what kind of insanity is overtaking me, that I would dream that one of my best friends would kill me, and that I would wish it. I remember once babbling about it to Wynnie, in the middle of the night, but she did not seem as concerned as I am; maybe she was just too sleepy. She patted my hand and said, "If Aragorn comes back to kill you again, 'Mir, just tell him I'll be right behind him with _my_ sword, and he'll have to answer to me!"

That night in the cave, I think I woke just as dawn was breaking, but I cannot be sure because I didn't open my eyes for quite some time. I must have been thrashing about in my dream, you see, because the first thing I became aware of was that Aragorn had a hand around the back of my neck, and he was rubbing it soothingly, and murmuring even more soothing words in Sindarin. And then the next thing I was aware of, rather embarrassingly, even though it is entirely normal for menfolk in the morning, was a hardness in my breeches - and in his. So I pretended to be a little more asleep than I was, so that neither of us need be ashamed, and only "woke up" gradually as he continued to repeat his soft Elvish phrases in my ear.

As soon as he realized I was awake, Aragorn moved away with a quick, "Good morrow, Faramir!" I meant to tease him about the Sindarin; for some reason (perhaps because I never use it, not being one for elf-lore, and having terrible pronunciation to boot) he seems to think I don't understand it at all. But by the time I had formed words in my head, he had escaped into one of the smaller caves. And shortly I heard faint sounds issuing from it that - well, that any man would recognize. And if I continued to listen intently, it was only for fear that I would be interrupted as I dealt with a similar urgent need myself.

That same urgent need that I now need to deal with again, apparently, just from remembering and writing this. Curses upon the man.

No, I don't mean that. He is my liege lord and my friend. And I will do the thinking he has asked me to do - but tomorrow. Tomorrow will be soon enough.

_Day 6_

_You are always loved, my Steward, my Faramir. And you will be desired, always desired, as you have been from the moment we met. But never, never coerced. I swear it, I swear it on everything I hold dear. Always loved, Faramir._

That is what Aragorn was saying in Sindarin that night.

This is foolish, a useless exercise. I refuse to continue.

_Day 7_

We had a visitor today - Legolas. Not an unusual visitor, for he spends a lot of time with the small colony of Elves in this domain, and often drops by to say hello. He likes the open fields and forests around our palace, while I think he finds the stone walls of Minas Tirith more than a little oppressive. Indeed, what the attraction of that castle can be to him, I do not know. No, that's not true - I have my suspicions, but it's none of my business. Nor is it at all appropriate for me to get so hot under the collar when I think about it. So I think I'll just leave that line of thought severely alone.

I like Legolas - I really do. It's maybe a bit disconcerting how he sometimes withdraws completely into himself, but most of the time he's very pleasant company and a most entertaining dinner guest. He has a bottomless supply of truly filthy jokes which he delivers with a straight face and an air of innocence that has to be seen to be believed. Wynnie and I both howl with laughter when he does that, for neither of us is a prude. And then he raises his eyebrows, gives us a quick wink and a grin, and goes on with the conversation. Oh, he's a charmer, all right. But more than that, he's completely devoted to Aragorn, and that of course is the best recommendation for anybody in our eyes.

When he arrived this morning, and said he wouldn't be leaving for Minas Tirith till later in the day, I took the opportunity to pop off to my study and make a few notes. That way I was ready to catch him on his way out.

"Would you do me the favour of passing these on to Orodreth?" I asked him then. " I just scribbled down a couple of the things he'll need to see to at the Rohan conference."

Legolas took my parcel and looked at it - all right, it was more than just a couple of things; it was eleven full-size foolscap sheets densely written. But I had only had time to cover the basics - it really should have been much more. "Sit down with me for a minute, Faramir?" he asked courteously, so I took a seat beside him on the garden wall that faces west to Minas Tirith. On a clear day you can just see the white turrets.

"Are you not going to be at the conference, then?" He sounded concerned.

I shook my head. "Eowyn will be there, of course," I said. "She wouldn't pass up the chance to see her brother, and her Rohirrim friends. She'll represent the house of Emyn Arnen splendidly."

Legolas shook his head, and put a hand on my arm to get my attention. "Aragorn will be very disappointed," he said. "Will you not reconsider?" When I hesitated, he added, "I'm sure you wouldn't want anything to go awry at such an important event. After all, Orodreth, though a good man, is still very young, and he may not be expecting to have to deal with all of this himself…"

Well, of course, by this point I felt like a complete fool. I was acting like a baby; I had duties to perform, and just because I was feeling a little embarrassed and confused was no reason to let Orodreth bear the brunt of things all at once.

"Thank you, Legolas," I said, and meant it. "You are quite right. Tell them… tell Orodreth I will be there by noontime tomorrow. In the meantime, he could get started on at least the things on the first two pages."

Legolas smiled. "Tomorrow you might want to bring along those other notes you were writing for Aragorn (or so he told me)," he added.

I shot him a sharp look, and he must have seen my alarm, for he said immediately, "I know nothing more about it than that, Faramir. I only mention it because it seemed to be quite important to him when he referred to it in passing."

I can never tell from his face whether Legolas is concealing something or not. In this case, I most sincerely do not want to know. Regardless, I am in his debt for reminding me that I must face up to Aragorn at least once. I bowed to him (why Elves can't shake hands like ordinary folk, I'll never know) and wished him good speed.

And then I sat there on that garden wall and thought. And thought. A little to my surprise, Wynnie never came to interrupt me, though I was out there for hours. And at the end of those hours, I had two certainties to deal with. The first is that if Aragorn were to ask me to go to his bed, I would, without hesitation. And the second is that he will never ask. He cares for me too much. We are no longer young men, and valour and passion are no longer our only guiding principles. He knows that there is much more to lose now, and much more to regret. And yet…

I have made my decision. Now I must go and find Wynnie and discuss some practical details with her.

_Epilogue_

_From the journal of Estel Elrondion, Aragorn son of Arathorn, now known as Elessar Telcontar, beginning of volume the 542nd._

Arwen has just left. When I came in here to write, she was sitting with her feet up, munching on an apple, reading Volume 247. Again. She likes that one. I kidded her that I was going to have to start charging a fee for all the entertainment my journals afford her, and she chuckled, saying there isn't that much gold in the Royal Treasury. But she could tell I was troubled, I think, and she just came over and kissed me and told me not to stay up too late, then left.

Looking at all these shelves of my journals, I despair. When I was seven years old, ada, you told me that a constant habit of setting my thoughts down on paper would help me straighten things out and do the right thing, and that's what I told Faramir too. But today I think maybe all these journals have been good for is to record the aftermath of incredible blunders. _How_ could I have been such a fool?

After he arrived this morning, he came straight to my study. He was tense and a little pale, as Legolas said, but he met my eyes steadily and smiled when he greeted me. Clearly he wasn't in the mood for small talk, though; within moments he had pulled out a sheaf of papers, and pulling back just the edge of the top one, he showed me with a wry grin that it was headed, _"I, Faramir"_.

"Did it help?" I asked.

He paused and looked down. "Yes," he said eventually. "Yes, in the end I think it will prove to have been a good thing."

He met my glance again, and for one moment I had the impression that he was going to hand me the papers. But he turned swiftly to the fireplace and threw the whole sheaf in, then sat down with a fire-iron and poked the pieces to make them succumb to the flames more quickly. As the last fragment changed to a curling, blackened ember, he looked up at me where I stood beside him and said in halting, but perfectly comprehensible Sindarin, "It is finished."

Before I had the chance to react to this surprise, or to comprehend its full significance, he had pushed me gently down into my chair and was explaining to me that he was relinquishing his administrative duties at my court entirely to Orodreth, and would be retiring to Emyn Arnen, where he and Eowyn would be spending most of their time with their son and his family, and bestowing more time and effort on the country folk around them, whom they felt they had neglected.

I sputtered and objected and tried to persuade him out of it, of course, but he was quietly adamant. "And now I have to go and make sure this evening's banquet table is properly set," he told me. "My last hoorah as your major-domo, you know - everything must be perfect." And he left.

I sat, stunned, trying to gather my whirling thoughts. And eventually it came to me why it was so important that he spoke in Sindarin. I groaned and put my face in my hands. Idiot that I am. Instead of relieving his discomfort, I only seemed to cause him more and more.

There was an apologetic tap on my door, and I went to answer it. To my surprise, it was Eowyn. She and I have never been much more than cordial, I'm afraid. It's understandable. I wanted to question her, ask for her understanding, even beg her influence in keeping Faramir from running away. But of course that was impossible. I have no idea how much she knows, and if she did, surely she would be the last to want to help.

Yet I somehow felt there was more warmth and sympathy in her towards me than I had seen in many years. "Don't worry, Aragorn," she said kindly. "I will take care of him. And sooner or later, he'll come back; I'm sure of it."

I pray to the Valar that you are right, White Lady. For I will miss him sorely.

_From Eowyn's Small Private Book_

I read it. Well, of course I did. He kept "accidentally" leaving it around where he knew I'd find it, instead of locking it away in his desk as he routinely does with anything half-way important. He can be pretty obvious, my Faramir. And just as obviously he didn't want my comments, or he would have brought it to me directly. So I haven't said anything. I suppose there are some who would tsk at me, but this dear man has been given to me by the Valar to care for, and I'll embrace any means, any information that helps me do that better.

There wasn't much in it that surprised me - really only two things. The first was that it all came as such a shock to 'Mir at this late date. The Valar know that he's never been one to examine his own feelings - spending your youth desperately trying not to want to murder your own father will do that to you - but I honestly thought that he must have realized by now that there was more of a spark between him and Aragorn than could fully be explained away by comradeship, fealty and the affection of old friends. Not that these things don't exist between them - indeed they do - but you'd think my dear old muddle-head would have sorted it out by now. Ah well - men! They're born with an endless capacity for wilful blindness, it seems.

It was certainly no surprise that Aragorn has an eye for the lads as well as the lasses. I've suspected that for a very long time, and Arwen as good as confirmed it - several times - during those days when we sat together nursing our respective firstborns and chatting about how our men were coping with having new rivals for our love and attention. Arwen's an Elf, and Elves know how to hold their counsel; they don't say anything by accident once, let alone several times. So I took it as the friendly warning I knew it to be.

No, what surprised me about Aragorn was that he didn't take more advantage of the situation. He's a better man than I, that's certain! Perhaps I truly have underestimated him all these years, and my resentment over old history has clouded my judgment a bit. On reflection, I'm glad to know there really is something in him of that impossibly perfect knight of my girlhood dreams.

I can't honestly say I'm sorry about Faramir's decision to stay away from Court, though. Even if Aragorn's trustworthy, just being around him is obviously making 'Mir uncomfortable, and that's reason enough. And frankly, there's something about the atmosphere of that court, with all the Elves around, that makes me just a little uncomfortable too; always has. No, it'll be no hardship to have him to myself for a while. And, naturally, it won't last forever. Inconvenient emotion doesn't just go away because you wish it would - I can attest to that. Inconvenient desire, on the other hand, is something you can wait out. I'll help him and take care of him till he realizes that he wants to go back and be Aragorn's friend and steward again - and then the Valar aid poor

Orodreth when 'Mir starts to meddle in all the duties he thinks he's handed over!

He's calling for me. "Wynnie!" I've always loathed that nickname. But what's to be done? It's Faramir who's calling me, my dearest love, reason for my existence and father of my son. He can call me whatever he likes - as long as he doesn't do it at Court!

"Wynnie, Wynnie!" There he goes again. Eru grant me patience. I'll Wynnie him…

_finis_

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